


Where's Levi

by schmicomalec



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, B-Team, Feelings, M/M, Some Fluff, a little humor, nico gets to have the feelings for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22805536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmicomalec/pseuds/schmicomalec
Summary: Nico and Levi wanted to go to Pride together, things didn't go entirely to plan.A Nico feelings fic, sprinkle of fluff and humor right at the beginning and end.
Relationships: Atticus Lincoln/Amelia Shepherd, Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Comments: 8
Kudos: 163





	Where's Levi

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like every angsty fic is very Levi centric so I wanted to write some Nico feels for a change.

Nico loved kissing Levi’s cheek. Not as much as his lips but his cheek was just a little higher up and with Levi being so short, well it took a degree of coordination for them to kiss. His cheek was just easier enough to reach that Nico had a habit of kissing it whenever he saw an opening. 

“Stop it.” Levi swatted Nico away before he had the chance to land a kiss. 

“Sorry, sorry.” Nico backed up. He hadn’t even consciously moved closer to his boyfriend.

“You know, you could just stand on the other side of me. You can kiss that cheek all you want, there’s no face paint.” Levi suggested. He grabbed another q-tip to touch up the square rainbow on his left cheek.

“I always stand on this side. All my stuff’s on this side.” Nico quipped.

“Then you keep your mouth to yourself for five more minutes so I can finish this up.” Levi huffed.

Nico leaned in so his mouth was right next to Levi’s ear. “For a surgeon who puts in as many hours in the skills lab as you do, shouldn’t you be done with that by now?”

“Kim, back off before I put this q-tip down your throat.” Levi laughed. 

Nico snaked himself around to Levi’s right side and kissed his clean cheek. “I’ll be in the kitchen making some coffee. And it will be in go mugs so we can go when you’re ready.”

“Text everyone that we’re leaving soon to pick them up but tell Dahlia we’re already on the way, she’s always late to get ready for stuff.”

“Sure thing. But you have no business talking crap about Qadri when you’ve been working on that for almost half an hour.”

“Shut up. I want it to look nice and I don’t have all the extra years of surgery to help me get it done faster.”

“It’s not just extra surgical practice, I’ve also been putting rainbows on my face since I was fifteen. But it’s cute how excited you are for your first pride. You’re like a little gay baby.” Nico gave Levi a quick kiss on the top of his head then left the bathroom.

“Whatever, old man!” Levi called after him. He smiled and went back to work on his face paint. 

He was finally finished and washing the paint off his finger tips when Nico came back into the bathroom. 

“I’m done! Look, we’re all good to go.” Levi pointed at the perfect square on his cheek. 

“And it looks lovely but we have a bit of a problem.” Nico started.

“If it’s Taryn’s fault I’ll drag her out of her apartment myself. She promised she’d come with to my first pride because she knew I was into you before I knew I was into you.” Levi interrupted.

“Babe, everyone knew you were into me before you. Avery and Hunt had a bet over if I would make a move first or you would literally pass out in surgery because I looked at you first.”

“That’s…. That’s like harassment or something right? Cause they’re both our superiors and you knew about it and I didn’t.” Levi asked.

“No idea, I’m ortho not legal. But that’s also not the problem. I have to get to the hospital.” 

“What? Why? Link’s supposed to be covering ortho today.” 

“Yes but Shepherd is going into labor.” Nico explained.

“Are her contractions-”

“Two minutes apart, yup. And there’s a higher chance of complication since she’s a few weeks early.”

“So….” Levi trailed.

“So unless I want to ask my best friend to miss the birth of his child…”

“You can’t come to pride because you have to cover ortho for the day.” Levi sighed. “Go. Go be a good friend and a good doctor.”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“It’s fine. Really. You will go help some patients and then get first dibs on meeting Link and Shepherd’s baby and I will go have an awesome first pride with my friends. Okay?”

“Okay.” Nico smiled.

“And besides,” Levi took a step closer to Nico so their chests were almost touching, “you and I can have a little more private celebration tonight before I’m back on-call.”

“I love you.” Nico cradled Levi’s face in his hands, careful not to rub the face paint. 

“I love you too.” Levi pushed onto his toes to give Nico a quick kiss.

“Your coffee’s on the counter and the B-Team’s waiting for you.” Nico gave Levi one last smile before heading for the door.

“Nico.” Levi said sternly. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He paused and patted his pockets down. “Phone, keys, wallet. I literally just kissed you and told you I love you.”

“I know it’s June and Grey + Sloan is equal opportunity for employees and patients but do you really need to announce to everyone in the whole hospital that you’re gay?”

“What are you-” Nico wiped a hand down his cheek and saw rainbow paint streaked on his fingers. “Pass me a baby wipe.” He sighed.

Levi handed him a wipe and Nico barely even started scrubbing his face before he was already headed out the door. “See you tonight!” Nico called out as he left.

Levi couldn’t help but smile as his boyfriend sprinted out of the apartment. He grabbed his phone to shoot the group chat a quick message before he left to pick everyone up.

**(lg)b(t) team**

Levi:  _ im running a tiny bit late yall, nico got called in, its baby time for link and shepherd _

Casey:  _ lame he was supposed to be the designated driver _

Dahlia:  _?i literally dont drink? like ever for any reason _

Casey:  _ well adult supervision then _

Taryn:  _ wait _

Taryn:  _ levi _

Levi:  _ what _

Taryn:  _ you guys used that sephora stuff i got you for the face flags right _

Levi:  _ yeah why _

Taryn:  _ and you both put it on before before nico got called in _

Levi:  _ yuuuuup _

Taryn:  _ well lets just say nicos gonna have a lot of fun at work today _

Levi:  _ why _

Levi:  _ what did you do to my boyfriend _

Taryn:  _ so it wasnt like a foundation or lipstick kind of make up _

Casey:  _ none of us speak make up _

Taryn:  _ the paint was a stain _

Dahlia:  _????? _

Taryn:  _ its not gonna wash off, the point of it is to stay on for at least twelve hours no matter what you do to it _

Dahlia:  _ nicos gonna come to your place and kill you _

Casey:  _ well before you die… just remember _

Taryn:  _ we dem bois? _

Casey:  _ no bones are gay and now everyone in the hospital knows _

Dahlia:  _ whered levi go _

Levi:  _ i just pulled up to taryns hurry your ass up _

Taryn:  _ i’ll be down in two seconds calm down baby gay _

  
  
  
  


Nico was going to murder Helm. And very conveniently for him, she was assigned to his service the next day so he wouldn’t even have to make time to do it. The worst part of the face paint issue was that he didn’t even notice the pride flag stuck on his face until Link was cackling outside Amelia’s delivery room. 

In a hospital full of state-of-the-art supplies, Nico couldn’t find a goddamn thing that would take the stain off his face. He even resorted to asking around for makeup that could cover it up. Not that any of Jo’s attempts to fix it did any good. 

It was just past lunch time when he’d already had five very awkward conversations with patients about how he got a rainbow stained to his cheek. He had one conversation that wasn’t awkward when a fractured tibia patient fist bumped him and said “bones are gay, bro”. She was very high on morphine when that happened.

The worst part of it wasn’t even that Nico was stuck looking highly unprofessional the whole day, it was that he had absolutely nothing to do. He elected to do rounds on all of the ortho patients despite having plenty of residents roaming around who could handle it because he was that bored. 

There were very few patients under his care at the moment, all of them postop and recovering smoothly, and he had caught up on his charts yesterday in order to get this day off to go to pride. 

He found himself wandering down to the ER after checking in on Amelia again. 

Apparently, it was a slow day for everyone else since Karev was trying to get paper airplanes in a recycling bin from the nurses’ station.

He looked up when he heard Nico approaching. “Nice face tat.”

“I was supposed to be wearing this at pride today with my boyfriend and his friends and instead I am here with a rainbow stuck to my face I’m pretty sure permanently because Shepherd had to give birth today and the face paint was a stain.” Nico grumbled.

“I don’t even know what a stain is.” Karev threw another paper airplane.

“Neither do I but I’m pretty sure Helm explained it in paragraph six of her apology text from this morning.”

“Why’s Hellmouth apologizing?”

“She’s the one who got the face paint and I would have just gotten whatever from party city but Helm and Levi were both on this thing about the brands at some makeup store being fair trade and eco friendly and I stopped paying attention halfway through the conversation.” 

“Dude, you can’t just tune out that stuff because Schmitt’s gonna freaking quiz you on it later and then get all upset because you weren’t listening.” Alex made his first successful shot into the bin.

“Levi smiles and nods when I talk hockey so he would be in no position to be upset with me over make up. Also he’s probably busy helping Helm put together a new identity and flee the country right now.” 

“Eh. Don’t be too hard on her. You could have something worse drawn on there, like a penis.” Alex pointed out. “Nobody like actually cares you’ve got a pride flag on your face, it’s just really funny.”

“It’s unprofessional, you know. I’m not opposed to my patients knowing that I’m gay, if they don’t want my treatment because of it then fine they can suffer until they become emergent and pass out and have no choice. But it’s something that normally comes up in regular conversation like when old ladies with broken hips see that I don’t have a wedding ring and try to set me up with their daughters or granddaughters and then I very nicely explain that I have a boyfriend. Literally having it plastered on my face is just too much for work.”

“I’ve done worse.” Alex shrugged. “Hell, you’ve done worse. I still remember that ambulance incident back when I was chief.”

“Well it’s not like you actually saw anything super bad. And we didn’t go around telling people what happened.” Nico defended himself.

“I mean, Schmitt did announce to that whole OR that you were ‘blown in the ambulance bay’. Hunt was pissed because he lost that bet with Avery.” 

“You know what, nevermind, I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.” Nico sighed. “I honestly just wish I had some patients today, it’s been so slow-”

He was interrupted by a ringing phone.

Alex picked it up immediately. “Great, you jinxed it. Grey + Sloan ER. Mhm. Alright, we’ll be ready and waiting.” He stood up and called out to the whole room. “Trauma gowns people! Mass shooting downtown, 60 injured and counting. Buses are two minutes out.”

Nico and Alex ran to get on gowns and gloves immediately. “A shooting sucks but at least it’s not slow anymore.” Nico said as he and Alex tied each other.

“Much. All the residents are gonna have to come in if they’re not already too drunk to be doctors. Link’s for sure missing the birth of his child but maybe he can check in if he’s the one running scans up to the delivery room cause Shepherd’s gonna have to do consults between freaking contractions.” Alex snapped his gloves on each hand. 

“Well if I can’t have the day off for pride, it looks like nobody else does either.” Nico shrugged.

Before either of them could say anything else, an ambulance pulled up to the ER doors. A paramedic was giving them information before she even got the back doors open. “Isaac Juarez, 23, G.S.W. to the abdomen and shoulder. Heart rate and BP all over the place, coded twice en route, received three rounds of epi.”

The patient being pulled into the hospital was a young guy. He was fairly muscular under the bloody clothes and straps. Nico grabbed a side of the gurney to move him when he saw a bracelet on the man’s wrist. Almost the whole thing was covered in blood but the smallest portion that was clean made Nico feel sick. It was a six-stripe rainbow.

“Dr. Karev, look.” Nico pointed it out to Alex right away. “Pride is supposed to be happening downtown. Someone shot up pride.”

Alex let a resident waiting by the doors take the gurney. “Trauma 1, page Hunt. We’ll be there in two seconds.” He pulled Nico a few steps away. “I know what you’re thinking and don’t you dare keep thinking it. Schmitt is coming to the hospital today and that is either in his car with the other three or in an ambulance with a patient whose life he will be in the process of saving.”

“What if-” Nico looked panicked.

“No ‘what if’s, no ‘maybe’s, none of that. Schmitt is alive and safe unless we find out otherwise. In the meantime, you are a doctor and these people need your help. Now go to trauma 1, I’ll take the next incoming.”

Nico did as he was told and ran to the trauma room. He worked on the patient, kept him alive, ordered necessary scans, up until it was time for him to be moved to the OR where Webber had to operate on his spleen. Then he moved onto the next patient who needed help.

It went on like that for easily a few hours. Shootings didn’t tend to leave people with a need for bone surgeries so Nico just kept any patient he had alive until cardio, peds, neuro, general, or trauma came to take care of a problem in their specialty. He didn’t feel like he even took a breath until he saw Casey climb out of an ambulance with his hand inside someone’s chest, massaging their heart. 

“Someone get Pierce or Altman, right now!” Casey hollered before the paramedics even had time to brief. 

Maggie was there in seconds and took over. Nico grabbed Casey and pulled him out of the way of the paramedics. “Where’s Levi?” He gulped.

“I don’t know.” Casey said quietly. “When we heard gunshots we tried to stick together but too many people all over the place needed help. I didn’t see any of the others for hours before I got in the ambulance with my patient.”

“Oh my god-” Nico was already hyperventilating.

“Nico. Look at me.” Casey grabbed his shoulders. “The last time you knew for sure Levi was okay was when you left for work this morning. Now it was a few hours ago. The more time someone is unaccounted for, the more likely it is that they’ve been hurt in that amount of time. The amount of time Levi has been unaccounted for to you just shrunk by a lot. That means it’s more likely that he’s okay.”

Nico could barely speak. “Did the gunshots stop by the time you saw him last?”

“Yeah. The shooter was only firing for maybe a minute. We didn’t split up and start triaging until it all ended.” Casey nodded.

“So he’s okay?” Nico nearly shuddered.

“He’s okay.” Casey reassured. “Now we need to get in there and get to work. We don’t just have a duty as doctors, it’s our community who needs our help.”

Nico remembered for the first time in hours that he had a pride flag stained on his face. It didn’t even occur to him while he was running around from patient to patient. He hoped it brought the victims some comfort, knowing one of their own was fighting to keep them alive. Since Nico felt better just seeing the blue, pink, and white on Casey’s cheek, he had to imagine it would help. 

So he went back to work. Fewer and fewer victims were still coming in, most that hadn’t been brought into surgery were already moved to the ICU or were in the process of getting discharged. 

Within the hour, Taryn and Dahlia arrived at the hospital with patients of their own. And neither of them knew where Levi was or had even seen him more recently than Casey. 

Nico was starting to panic. The spikes of anxiety he had been getting all day long, anytime he let his thoughts wander back to Levi, were small enough that he could push them down. But now he didn’t have any patients to take his mind off of his worry, or any friends or coworkers to comfort him. 

Just hearing one person tell him that Levi was okay, even if there was nothing to prove that, would do so much to soothe the horrible tingling pain spreading through his chest. 

Without much else to do at the moment, Nico decided to make his way back to Amelia’s delivery room. When Alex said that she’d have to consult scans in between contractions, he’d been right. She had finished giving birth to Scout Derek Lincoln-Sheppard only an hour or so after the patients started flooding in and both she and Link agreed to let the baby get taken for his routine checks a little earlier than normal so they could dive into the work that needed to be done in the ER.

Link had been called into surgery with Hunt, something about a cracked rib cage, but Amelia was technically on maternity leave now so she was sitting in her room, spending a minute with her child for the first time since he’d been born. 

“Knock knock.” Nico said as he peeked his head in the door.

“Hey there! Want to meet the baby?” Amelia held up the little bundle in her arms.

“Oh my god, yes!” Nico came over to lean over her shoulder. Scout was asleep so he made sure to speak quietly. “He’s perfect.”

“His dad’s hardly had a minute to see him but I’m sure he’s still happy to meet Uncle Nico.” Amelia smiled.

“Don’t make me fall too in love with this baby or I will kidnap him and raise him as my own.” Nico laughed.

“How’re you gonna explain that one? Does the white couple adopting a chinese baby thing work in reverse now?” Amelia joked.

“First of all, I’m Korean. And we’ll just tell little Scout that Levi’s his biological father or some-” Nico stopped right as he remembered, he didn’t actually know if Levi was okay or not.

Amelia noticed. “No word from him yet, huh?”

“No.” Nico sighed. “Move over a bit.” He nudged Amelia to the side so he could down in the bed next to her.

“He’s safe. He has to be, there weren’t any reported fatalities on scene and the area hospitals have reported all of their DOAs and losses in house. Bailey would have been paged if his name were on any of the reports.”

“But what if they couldn’t ID his body? You know Levi, he drops his wallet like it has an opposing magnetic force to his pocket.” Nico felt the tears coming into his eyes. Not even this beautiful baby, his unofficial nephew, could distract him from the spiral he was falling down anymore.

“I refuse to believe that he’s hurt. And I’m not going to let you think about it either.” Amelia passed the still sleeping Scout into Nico’s arms. “It’s physically impossible for you to be anxious or afraid while you hold a newborn baby.”

“I’m not sure about the science on that one.” Nico forced out a laugh and wiped his tears away before he took the baby.

He stared down at Scout for a while. His anxiety was certainly still present, but it was just a little bit easier to push it down when he saw this child’s face. He was a gorgeous baby, excellent weight for a newborn, and he cleared all of the health checks with flying colors.

Link hadn’t said much about it, but Nico knew Amelia was terrified of some kind of genetic condition or birth defect that would hurt their child.

“You really did make a great baby.” Nico said after a while.

“Well I did most of the work making him, but Link’s going to be an amazing father. And Scout’s got a big wonderful family here to help out too. Like Meredith and Maggie, and Jo loves babies so much I’m sure she and Alex will be asking for babysitting time, and then you.” Amelia grinned. “And Levi. He’s going to be a part of my child’s life.” She added.

Nico tried to smile. As happy as Scout was making him in that moment, it just wasn’t enough to allow him to fully forget how much he was hurting at the idea of Levi possibly being hurt or something worse he was trying so hard not to even think about. His anxiety was clipped, just not completely.

Within a few minutes, Link was walking into the delivery room, still draped in his surgical gowns.

“I’m gone for a couple of hours and you’re already replacing me as the father?” He took Scout gently right out of Nico’s arms.

“I might have to make Nico the replacement father before he’s even properly named as the godfather if Bailey catches you running around her hospital in bloody gowns.” Amelia answered.

“I have spent way too much of my son’s birthday not spending time with him. Bailey is lucky I didn’t bring my little mockingbird into the OR.” Link was pinching Scout’s fingers and kissing his forehead so much that the baby would probably be awake and crying soon.

Nico leaned over to Amelia, “I promise you that if his parents didn’t name him Atticus that he would never have even read that book and he probably would have failed 9th grade English.”

“Well I promise you that Scout is not reading that book until he’s at least in middle school. He can have normal children’s books for a while before we have to explain Jim Crow Era racism to him.” Amelia chuckled with Nico.

“I should go, you guys deserve some time as a family for a little while.” Nico stood up to excuse himself.

As he made for the door, Link stopped him. “Hey, you’re family too, you’re always welcome to be around Scout. And Nico,” 

“Yeah?”

“Levi’s okay. I promise you. You’ll see him or hear from him soon.”

“Thanks, man.” Nico gave Link a fist bump then Scout one quick kiss on his cheek before leaving.

He pulled out his phone to double check that he hadn’t gotten any messages as he walked back down to the ER. Nico couldn’t even bring himself to get down the stairwell.

Nothing. Not even one notification.

Nico tried calling him again. And again. And again. And three more times after that. Then he sent sixteen text messages.

If anything else had been happening that day, Nico may have laughed at himself. Levi was always the one to be a little clingy over the phone. In fact, the two of them had to have a conversation at the start of their relationship about it since they freaked each other out a bit with how differently they texted each other.

Now, Nico knew to expect about six messages anytime Levi saw a dog on the street and Levi knew a couple of heart emojis was Nico’s way of gushing like a teenager.

As the line trilled and died once again, Nico collapsed. The anxiety that had been building like sand flowing down an hourglass all day finally grew to be too big and shattered the glass that was trying to contain it. He was never a terribly emotional person, he kept most of anything he felt to himself or if it was big enough he’d talk to Levi about it for five minutes maximum. 

Maybe that’s why he was breaking down now. 

Nico loved Levi, more than anyone else he had ever met. He had never been in a relationship longer than six months and he had never felt anything close to what he felt for Levi now. And maybe he didn’t say it enough, didn’t do enough to show Levi that.

Nico hadn’t cried since the day Josh died. Before that it was eight years ago when his grandpa passed. But now he couldn’t seem to stop. 

Sitting against a wall at the top of the stairs, not even able to care if someone walked in on him or not, he just sobbed. It had been hours,  _ hours _ , since he had seen or heard from him and at this point, how could he possibly believe anything other than the worst at this point.

“Link said I might find you here.”

Nico looked up at the voice coming from above him.

_ This has to be a dream _ .

“Levi?” He gasped.

“Yeah. I wanted to call but my phone-”

Nico didn’t even let him finish. He leaped to his feet and pulled Levi in as tight as he possibly could.

“I was so scared.” Nico said softly.

“I’m okay, I promise. I’m sorry I scared you.” Levi’s voice was a little muffled from being pressed into Nico’s chest. 

“It’s not your fault.” Nico sniffled. “I know you would’ve called if you could have.”

“Yeah, my phone actually saved my ass from taking a bullet.” Levi chuckled.

“What?!” Nico pulled back in shock. “You almost died?”

“No, no, no!” Levi laughed. “I mean, literally, my ass. It was in my back pocket with my wallet and between those two, the bullet stopped before it got to me. If it had, I would have been fine, you know it’s just my butt. But, yeah, still great it didn’t ever hit me.”

Nico’s mouth fell open in shock. He wrapped himself right back around Levi, still trying to find a response to the idea that his boyfriend had literally almost been shot.

“Baby, you’re crushing me a little bit.” Levi called out from where Nico was holding him.

Nico eased his grip to give him some more breathing room, but still held onto him. “You-you… oh my god, Levi, you were almost shot!”

“Only in my butt!” Levi argued.

“You would have still been shot! With a bullet! From a gun!” Nico finally broke the hug, but kept his hand on the back on Levi’s neck, running the tips of his fingers through his hair.

“But I wasn’t. I’m fine, I swear.” Levi assured.

“I am never letting you out of my sight again.” Nico smiled and wiped the tears out of his eyes. 

“Love, that is not sustainable. Also, kinda creepy.” Levi joked.

“Maybe not forever. But I’m hanging onto you for at least the next few days.” Nico let out a small snort. “Want to get out of here?”

“Yes! God, all I want to do right now is take a warm bath and then eat some take out in front of the tv.” Levi pressed his side into Nico’s and began walking them both out of the stairwell.

“You do realize that I’m cuddling with you for every second of that, right?” 

“Nico Kim, I never thought I’d see the day when you acted clingier than me.”

“Yeah and I never thought I’d spend a whole day not knowing if you were alive or not because you literally almost got shot, let me process how I need to process.” Nico let his arm snake around Levi’s waste. He normally hated PDA at work, but at least for now he needed the physical contact to remind him that Levi was really here with him, and alive and okay.

“Oh, before we go home we need to stop back at Dr. Shepherd’s room. I was looking for you right when I got here that I didn’t have time to actually see the baby.” 

“You and I were named uncles of her child, you can call her Amelia.” 

“I’m a resident, I’d rather die.”

Nico stopped in his tracks. “Dude…. Really? After today?”

“Sorry.” Levi winced. “Didn’t hear that until I actually said it.”`

“It’s okay, babe.” Nico kissed him on the top of the head and started walking again to Amelia’s room. “Scout’s also the cutest kid you’re ever gonna meet. And Link is completely over the moon about him.”

“I’m happy for those two, they deserve each other. And can you imagine if the baby had been Hunt’s?”

“Oh my god, I think I was more scared of that than Link was after Amelia got that ultrasound.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started this before Qadri left the show and she's here because of my head canon that she's bi and therefore the B-Team each is one letter in LGBT (Taryn's L, Levi's G, Dahlia's B, Casey's T). Also I'm trying to throw out into the universe that Amelia's baby is Link's and not Hunt's because jfc will that man stop having children for like one season.
> 
> Comments and kudos pay my bills and water my crops.


End file.
